Hi, most of my drums are cheap ones - I love them all. What happened?:I started drumming just for fun, with the one only interest to get some impression, what else can I do with my hands... I had no idea how long I would continue this hobby. Nevertheless, our teacher recommended to buy only good drums as possible just from the beginning. - 1st if you continue drumming, you will need some good instrument at least; 2nd even if you stop playing at some time, you may rather sell a professional instrument for a good price than a cheap one, for which you might never get a deal at all!But I didn't know what is a good drum when I got started. And I learned, that there are a lot of different hand drums instead the congas. So I decided to buy different types for cheap just to get some initial idea of its playing and then to decide, what style fits me the best. I personally tested all of my drums before I bought it. And I did it only if I liked the sounds what could I get with my own skills - all but the Turkish darbuka. That was a gift by my wife, but it's a really pretty one, isn't it?So I tried to get a good sound of my Turkish beauty almost over two years without a definite result. I missed all those sharp sounds I knew from Arab music records. Then only I asked my wife to buy a professional darbuka. I'm so happy with it. The most stuff I really learned only last year.I'm playing all my drums now and I'm looking forward, because I just cannot imagine my life without drumming now...!!!

If you're truly serious about drumming and looking to stick with the darbuka for the long term, then i would spend a little more for a professional type. This goes for just about every instrument really - many people are unsure and go for a cheap instrument to be on the safe side, but sometimes a cheap option will give you a bad impression of the instrument and/or the build quality will be atrocious. Also, buying cheap will not necessarily save you money in the long term - if you do stick with it, you will want a professional darbuka eventually, so that will be even more money on top of what you already paid for the cheap one. Better to buy the professional drum from the offset!

When i started playing drums at the age of thirteen, my parents could only afford a cheap drum kit, and after about a year the attachments for the tom-toms broke. We eventually bought a professional kit that is still going strong over ten years later. When i started playing darbuka i bought a Meinl for about £80, and while it is still passable in sound, it does not have the same excellent sound as a GEF. When i bought a GEF for over twice the price of the Meinl i realised the huge difference, and now i only really play the GEF. I use the Meinl for teaching my friends things, but 99% of the time i will play the mother of pearl GEF no question.

The first thing I do when I pick up a new darbuka, I give it a nice healthy Doum. An open, resonant, and deep Doum sound, should tell me if this darbuka is healthy or “doesn’t feel good”. If I hear that the Doum is choked, and doesn’t resonate, than it’s not a good sounding darbuka, and I move to the next one.

An excellent Darbouka/Tabla player from Lebanon (Rony Barrak) has a prefered model with which there are only 4 tuning bolts!!!He is very good. I have his first solo album and the special two disc Harem album by Sarah Brightman which features a lot of his Darbouka and Riq work. You can see him perform (at least for a little bit) on disc 2 which is a documentary DVD to the album. I'm sure you would make the sound you want with either model and good practice.